Mortal Kombat: Armageddon -- Premium EditionReview

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The end is here -- has the Mortal Kombat franchise survived?

By Jeff Haynes

Armageddon. Numerous cultures have a prophecy or belief about the end of the world. Some of them essentially go gentle into that good night, while others go out with a massive, cataclysmic bang. For fifteen years, the Mortal Kombat franchise has been staving off this catastrophe, eviscerating warriors in various tournaments to determine the fate of various realms. However, it's time has finally run out. As a send off to the current generation of systems, Midway has gathered a huge roster of warriors together for a final climactic tournament in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. But does the series go out with a bang, or a whimper?

The Beginning of the End

Unlike the previous two Mortal Kombat titles on the consoles, the primary thrust of Armageddon isn't about treachery, quests for power or even conquering realms. Instead, Armageddon focuses upon a dangerous scenario preordained by the Elder Gods. Inevitably, over the course of multiple Mortal Kombat tournaments, the realms would become so saturated with skilled warriors with special abilities and powers that the very safety and fabric of Earthrealm, Outworld and others would be torn apart by their constant fighting. This fatal tipping point would lead to an apocalyptic battle that would destroy all life everywhere. As a safeguard to this scenario, the Gods established a pyramid with an elemental guard, Blaze, who would signal when the final battle for the universe would be held.

There are no alliances or friends in Armageddon.

The battlefield intro of the game does a great job of setting up the sense that, literally, all hell is about to break loose with just about every single fighter in the game rushing towards each other in a windswept crater. From Scorpion and Sub-Zero renewing their contentious fight to Baraka and Kung Lao squaring off in mid-air, if you're a MK fan, you can't help but get an adrenaline charge from seeing all of these warriors squaring off before the appearance of the pyramid forces a temporary pause in the action. What's more, the zombified Liu Kang has an excellent entrance, confronting Shang Tsung on one of the upper tiers of the pyramid by re-snapping his neck back into place before launching his attack. Finally, Blaze's bellowing roar towards the fast approaching fighters that Armageddon has indeed begun, and there doesn't appear to be anything that can be done to avoid it.

The Kompetitive Konquest

Of course, there's much more to the tournament than the primary fighters know, and that's where the Konquest mode comes in. Retooled for the third time in as many games, Armageddon's Konquest mode does away with the simplistic tutorial fight missions from Deadly Alliance or the time specific quests and missions from Deception that players weren't even guaranteed to discover. Instead, Armageddon takes a couple of pages from the popular spin-off title Shaolin Monks, providing a linear exploratory adventure while introducing the two newest characters to the Mortal Kombat franchise, Taven and Daegon.

You'll travel the realms in the redone Konquest mode.

Taven and Daegon are the half-god sons of Argus, an Edenian god and Delia, a sorceress with the ability to predict the future. Both men are sent away by their parents to Earthrealm and held in suspended animation by two dragons over numerous centuries to avoid detection by Shao Kahn until the time would come for them to be awakened. At that moment, the two would then compete in a wide ranging quest to retrieve powerful weapons left by their parents for them so they would be prepared to eventually face and defeat Blaze. The winner would become the protector of Edenia, although the quest had a hidden, secondary motive: potentially averting the foretold apocalypse seen by Delia.